


MacNamara-Foster Family Christmas

by makethestorylast



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid
Genre: Autistic Hannah Foster, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Sweaters, Fluff, Gen, Nightmare Time Episode 6: The Witch in the Web, Nightmare Time Spoilers, any way merry crimmus mia ily, i just think mac and holloway being basically siblings, john mcnamara being a dad, let the foster sisters have a functional family 2k20, which is what he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28352772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makethestorylast/pseuds/makethestorylast
Summary: John MacNamara and the Foster sisters visit a family friend to celebrate Christmas.Completed for the 2020 JEST Gift Exchange, ily Mia Cheezy : )
Relationships: Hannah Foster & John McNamara, Hannah Foster & Lex Foster, Hannah Foster & Miss Holloway, John McNamara & Miss Holloway, Lex Foster & John McNamara
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	MacNamara-Foster Family Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> CW // Nightmare Time Spoilers, Ep. 6

Hannah noticed a lot of things on the drive to Miss Holloway’s. The first thing she noticed was the snow—in fact, she’d noticed it early that morning, before she even knew they were driving down, and she ran into Lexi’s room and jumped on the bed, shaking her awake to show her the first snow of the season. The sun barely peeked above the horizon, casting the frosted trees and glittering banks of snow in dim golden light.

She also noticed Christmas lights. So many of them. They weren’t lit yet, it wasn’t nearly dark enough for that, but she could already picture what the late-night drive home would look like, all of the twinkling lights and distant music. 

Lexi was sitting up front with Mac—and Hannah wasn’t going to lie, it was still so strange to call him that, but he’d insisted she stop calling him “Mr. MacNamara”—arguing over what music to play. Not arguing like Mom used to. They didn’t yell, just playfully bickered, and every so often Lexi would quickly switch the radio back to her favorite channel and Mac would just sigh (though Hannah could see him in the rearview mirror struggling to hold back a smile).

“How much longer?” Hannah asked quietly, leaning her head on the window.

“We’re almost there,” Mac said, flipping the radio back before Lex had time to react. She groaned.

“You’re seriously going to make us listen to your old man music the whole way?”

“Hey, watch it,” he shot back, elbowing her in the side. “And I’m not that old.”

“Well the 50s called, and they want their music back,” she grumbled, untangling an old pair of broken earbuds.

“I like the music.” She did, it was bouncy and happy and the words were easy to pick out on the first listen. Lexi’s music sounded like screaming a little bit, and if she listened to it for too long it made her head hurt.

“Thank you, Hannah,” Mac said pointedly.

“My own sister, a traitor,” Lex joked, her voice dramatic and exaggerated. She glanced up to see Mac looking at her with a triumphant grin. “Eyes on the road, old man.”

The old flip phone in the cupholder rang, buzzing lightly.

“Answer that for me, would you, Lex?”

Lex rolled her eyes but flipped open the phone anyway, bringing it up to her ear without glancing at the screen. “Would it kill you to at least get caller id?” she mumbled, then smiled and said, “Oh, hi, Miss Holloway!”

Hannah shifted in her seat, listening in close, but she couldn’t quite hear the voice on the other end of the line. 

“Yeah, we’re on our way now… Well, he  _ says _ we’re almost there, but he’s been saying that for the last 20 min—Hey!” she yelped, narrowly dodging Mac’s elbow again.

“We’re almost there, just a few minutes,” he said loudly. Lex pressed a button and tilted the phone toward him.

“And how many minutes is a few, Johnathan?” Miss Holloway teased, the phone making her voice sound crackly.

“Pulling into the driveway now,” he answered, and Hannah grabbed at the car door as they drove over the curve, the car shaking slightly. “Have the door open for us, will you? We have a lot to bring in.”

“Of course.” The phone beeped and went silent. Lex snapped it shut and passed it to Mac, who pocketed it as he put the car in park. Hannah opened her door, letting in a gust of freezing air. She stretched her legs out before standing up, drawing her flannel closer around her.

By the time the three of them managed to haul the last of the presents inside, Hannah’s hair was covered in snowflakes. Maybe Lexi was right about her needing a hat. She dropped the last package under Miss Holloway’s tree (which nearly sagged under the weight of all the ornaments and lights) and sat criss-cross next to Lex by the fire. Mac and Miss Holloway disappeared into the kitchen, and Lexi was busy warming up her freezing hands, so Hannah just watched the flames dance, fixated on the way they leaped and the sound of the wood popping and crackling. The warmth was nice, too, on her cold face. She scooted a bit closer.

“I hope you haven’t eaten yet,” Miss Holloway said, snapping Hannah out of her reverie. She turned around to see her walking in with a huge plate piled with cookies and fudge. “I think I made a bit too much, and I know I’m not eating it all.” She set the plate on the coffee table and sunk into an old leather armchair nearby, motioning for them to sit on the couch. 

Lexi got there first, curling up on one end and grabbing the closest cookie, one cut in the shape of a reindeer, just like the one on the front of Miss Holloway’s sweater. Mac sat down on the other end, and Hannah wedged herself between them. Through a mouthful of cookie, Lex asked, “Where’s Duke, then?”

“Nosy,” Miss Holloway replied, though there was no malice behind it. “He has family to visit down south, and I was more than happy to stay here and celebrate with you three. Besides, what’s the point of celebrating Christmas with no snow?” 

Something beeped in the kitchen, and Miss Holloway moved to stand up, but Mac stood up first, saying “I’ll get it, don’t worry,” despite her protests.

“That man…” she said with a shake of her head once he’d disappeared into the kitchen. “Nevermind, I needed to tell you both something anyway.” She got up and moved to the tree, inching behind it and rustling through packages, ornaments jingling when she shifted, before coming back with three messily wrapped lumps. “Now my family always had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve, and I have these for you three, but I think John might need a little… persuasion when he opens his. You understand, girls?”

Hannah nodded. She didn’t understand in the slightest, but she had a feeling she’d know as soon as they unwrapped their presents. And besides, Lexi was nodding too, so if Hannah really didn’t understand, Lexi could probably handle it.

“What are you three scheming about in here?” Mac asked, carrying in a tray of steaming mugs that he sat next to the plate of cookies. 

“Nothing of your concern,” Miss Holloway teased. She waited for Mac to take a sip from his mug, which Hannah was almost certain had coffee instead of hot chocolate like the rest, then tossed one of the packages at him. “Merry Christmas.”

“It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, just open the package, Scrooge.”

Mac rolled his eyes but started meticulously tearing at the tape seams nonetheless. Miss Holloway passed Lex and Hannah each a package too. Hannah turned it in her hands, watching the silver foil design sparkle, but Lex wasted no time and ripped hers open immediately, pulling out a chunky red sweater with a pattern of colorful lights and a silhouette of Santa in his sleigh. Hannah followed suit, opening her package while Lexi shrugged off her jean jacket and tugged on her new sweater instead.

Hannah’s was white, which was nice—red was too angry for her, and even after years, green still gave her a bad feeling sometimes—with shimmery gold letters that spelled out “Silent Night,” surrounded by stars. She ran a hand down it, noticing how soft it was.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

Mac held up his own sweater, and for a second Hannah thought he was upset that it was green. Then she noticed what was on it.

His sweater was covered in silver and gold tinsel, with little pom-pom ornaments and bells dotted throughout. Every time he moved it, even slightly, it jingled. 

“Oh, come on, John, get in the holiday spirit,” Miss Holloway goaded. Lex was very clearly struggling to hold back laughter.

“I’m not wearing it.”

Lex rolled her eyes and snatched the sweater out of Mac’s hands, holding it up and inspecting it. “C’mon, it’s really not  _ that _ bad—”

“It’s not happening,” Mac insisted flatly, but before he could do anything else, Lex lunged toward him, yanking the sweater over his head.

“Lex, what the hell?” he managed to shout, muffled by the sweater. She pulled a bit more, until his head popped out of the top, hair frizzy and glasses askew. His arms were pinned to his side, and he glared at Lex.

“Language, old man. Don’t you feel more festive?”

He continued to glare.

“Well, fine, if you hate it  _ that _ much…” Lex made a show of sighing and reaching to pull the sweater back off, but Mac jerked back and pulled his arms through, grumbling half-heartedly the whole time.

“Now was that so bad?” Miss Holloway asked with a sly smile.

“Don’t start.” Mac shifted on the couch, crossing his arms. His sweater jingled.

Miss Holloway managed to hold back her laughter long enough to get up and pull out a box of old VHS tapes. “Well, now that we’re all in the Christmas spirit, how about a movie?” Hannah watched as she pulled out a handful of dusty cases. “I’ve got Frosty, the Grinch…” she trailed off and looked back at them, hands full of movies.

“How about Rudolph?” Mac suggested. “That was always my favorite. I still probably have the tape for it floating around too, come to think of it.”

“You’re both so old,” Lex groaned. 

Mac frowned. Miss Holloway ignored her.

“I like Rudolph,” Hannah said to no one in particular.

“Well, that settles it!” Miss Holloway clapped her hands together, then popped the tape out of the case, fiddled with the VHS player for a moment, and moved back to her chair.

Hannah rested her head on Lexi’s shoulder as the movie played. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Mac mouthing the words to “Silver and Gold,” then heard him faintly singing. He didn’t sing often, usually didn’t even entertain the idea, but Hannah thought he had a nice voice. It suited the song well. She decided not to mention it, hoping she might catch him singing again.

While they watched, Lex worked through the plate of cookies. Hannah grabbed another piece of fudge, letting it melt on her tongue instead of chewing. It was so sweet it almost made her teeth chatter, and it made the inside of her mouth sticky. She took a sip of her now-cold hot chocolate to wash it down. 

They didn’t talk much through the movie (aside from Mac muttering a lecture on how Rudolph was exploited by Santa after years of bullying, but Hannah thought it was justified, so she didn’t count it), but while the credits rolled and Hannah tried to blink the sleep from her eyes, Lex mentioned offhandedly, “Hey, Banana, didn’t you bring your ukulele?”

“Yeah?” she said, not sure where Lexi was going with this.

“Do you know any Christmas songs?”

“Yeah,” Miss Holloway agreed. “Can you play something for us?”

Hannah blinked. She tried to think what Christmas songs she might know, tapping her fingers on her thigh in the shapes of chords. Mac must’ve interpreted her silence as discomfort, because he added quietly, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I think I can play something,” she said, still silently running through chords in her head as she reached for her case and unzipped it. She fiddled with the tuning pegs for a second, eyes closed as she tuned, then ghosted her fingers over the strings, trying to remember her way around the notes.

She stumbled through the intro of “O Christmas Tree,” fumbling over a few notes, and paused, glancing up. Miss Holloway gave her an encouraging nod, and Lexi patted her shoulder with a smile, but she looked over at Mac.

“Sing with me?” she asked quietly, and when he didn’t respond right away, she almost thought he didn’t hear her. Or maybe that he was willfully ignoring her. But after a moment’s pause, he nodded almost imperceptibly. She turned her gaze back to the strings and let her muscle memory take over for a second, starting to sing and smiling when she heard Mac’s low voice join hers.

“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches…”

The fire continued to crackle in the background, and the light around them dimmed as the sun began to set, making the snowbanks shimmer. Lex put her arm around Hannah’s shoulder, pulling her closer as she and Mac continued to sing. Hannah chanced another glance up at Miss Holloway, who was watching Mac with a watery smile.

And wrapped in a blanket of warmth, in the smell of hot chocolate and cookies and pine, in the sound of music, in Lexi’s embrace, Hannah felt at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to drop a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!
> 
> <3
> 
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